Warlords of Draenor - Garrison Now in a Static Location
Mumper shared some more garrison information with us today, with the most interesting point being that you will not be able to relocate your garrison.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

could there be a max level feature or quest line to move your garrison? Maybe raze/rebuild? Cost time AND resources.
That's an option we have discussed. (Source)

Wait so you mean my Horde character is going to be stuck in winter wasteland hell whether I like it or not
We are working hard to make it an awesome place you will want to spend time in. (Source)

will we need to do at least the main quest line in each zone in order to advance the garrisons properly?
We hope you will, but everything will unlock based on level as a fallback. (Source)Whatever happened to them being optional content? This seems unnecessary, and takes away the fun of choosing a location..
Sill an option, still many choices. (Source)

Is there any plan on giving more profession slots to chars, so we don't have multiple alts to have them?
Garrisons will let you essentially have up to 4 more if you choose those buildings. (Source)can you clarify, is that 4 more above what we currently have or 4 total?
4 more, if you choose to use all 4 of your small plots.will the garrison profession slots be just like having the actual profession or will they be missing things the real prof could do?
Pretty similar to the normal profession. (Source)

Any chance of having racial-themed buildings (as least a few)? Or will it all be orc-themed for Horde?
We are integrating some racial hits into the profession hubs. Looking cool so far! (Source)

Is there going to be an easy way to get back there when you're in another zone?
For sure. No exact plan but we will give you a fast way to get back. (Source)

Warlords of Draenor Alpha Patch Notes Update - April 23

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Active Mana Regeneration (New)
Another part of the changes to healing is providing a way for them to better manage their mana. There are ways to spend more mana for more healing but, we’re also adding methods for healers to trade extra time or healing or more mana to use later in a fight when they really need it.

Druid

Innervate has been redesigned to now have a 2-second cast time with no cooldown, and causes the Druid to gain 2.5% of maximum mana every 4 seconds for 8 seconds. Spending any mana on a healing spell will cancel this effect.

Innervate is now available only to Restoration Druids. has been removed. Mana costs for Druids have been adjusted accordingly.

Mage

Polymorph cosmetic variants are now all learned as spells instead of having some as a Minor Glyph that alters the visuals of Polymorph: Sheep. All of these variants (except for the automatically learned one, Polymorph: Sheep) are now grouped in a Polymorph variants flyout in the Spellbook.

Paladin

Avenging Wrath is no longer available to Protection Paladins. now only available to Retribution Paladins.

Tank Vengeance and Resolve (Updated)
Then, to keep tank DPS meaningful, we'll be raising their damage, since it would be meager with no Vengeance Attack Power (Vengeance accounted for 70-90% of a tank's damage on high-tank-damage fights in Mists). To do that, we're increasing the damage of several prominent tank abilities, as well as having tanks also gain increased Attack Power from Mastery and Bonus Armor, in addition to the stat’s existing benefits. That also helps keep secondary stats balanced in offensive value for them.

General

Bladed Armor is a new passive ability for Blood Death Knights, Guardian Druids, Brewmaster Monks, Protection Paladins, and Protection Warriors.

Bladed Armor increases Attack Power by 100% of the character's Bonus Armor.

Class Changes

Death Knight
We made several changes to compensate for abilities that have been removed by Ability Pruning. Blood Boil got removed and its effects were merged into Pestilence. This change in effect turned Roiling Blood into a passive ability; which we replaced with a new talent, Plaguebearer. For Blood specialization we removed Rune Strike and are adjusting the cost of Death Coil so it can be used in Rune Strike’s place.

There were also a few other miscellaneous changes. The Runic Power generation of Anti-Magic Shell was standardized, to make it more understandable and balanced. Level-60 and Level-75 talent rows have swapped places, so the important rune regeneration talents could be acquired earlier.

We also did some polishing on Brewmasters and Windwalkers and made Storm, Earth, and Fire, Transcendence, and Touch of Death easier to use. Fists of Fury has also been improved; sometimes brute force is the right answer. Gift of the Ox was changed to give value to the new Multistrike stat for Brewmasters. Lastly, Tiger Strikes was improved considerably, and made available to all Monk specializations.

There were several changes that affected multiple Monk specializations. We’d like to see Monks using Transcendence more often, so its usability has been improved (some baseline, and some in a Draenor Perk). For Touch of Death, we like that it’s a unique execute being usable only once, but found it impractical to use on bosses and have improved its usability. For Tiger Strikes, we buffed it to grant Multistrike ability which it was similar to already, and extended it to work with all Monk specializations.

We’re making a few changes that mostly affects Windwalkers, but has a minor impact on Mistweavers and Brewmasters as well. For energy-based gameplay to function well, the primary limitation on ability usage should be energy, not time. As such, we're making the following changes to address GCD-capping problems. First, we’re reducing the effects and mana increase of Ascension, because it became more powerful when combined with several of our other changes to healers. We believe that Ascension will remain as a competitive talent for Brewmasters. Second, energy cost of Jab has been increased for Windwalkers. And Third, we reduced the chance for Combo Breaker to trigger. Individually, these may sound like significant nerfs but Windwalker damage has been adjusted to compensate for these changes. The goal is not to reduce DPS while addressing the issue with GCD-capping.

Ascension now increases energy regeneration and maximum mana by 10% (down from 15%).

Combo Breaker now has an 8% chance to trigger, per effect, per Jab (down from 12%).

A couple of additional changes for Windwalkers. Storm, Earth, and Fire, got buffed to make it smoother to use. We also buffed Fists of Fury because we felt that the ability wasn’t giving a strong enough damage boost given its restrictions and impact on the Monk's rotation.

Storm, Earth, and Fire no longer has an energy cost, and is off GCD.

Fists of Fury now deals 100% increased damage, and always deals full damage to your primary target; additional targets are still affected by the damage split.

For Brewmasters, Gift of the Ox has been modified to allow it to scale defensively with the new Multistrike stat. The Black Ox Statue has been modified to aid Monks in establishing aggro on new enemies.

Black Ox Statue now also passively attracts the attention of all enemies within 30 yards, causing a minor amount of threat each second.

Gift of the Ox now has a chance to trigger only from auto attack Multistrikes, instead of from all auto attacks. It has a 100% chance to trigger while using a two-handed weapon, and a 62.5% chance to trigger while dual wielding.

Glyph of Leer of the Ox now also causes Black Ox Statue to passively pulse a minor amount of threat to all enemies within 30 yards.

We wanted to improve Seal gameplay for Protection and Retribution, so have made a few changes in that regard. Protection had three Seals, but only used Insight due to its defensive value. We’ve moved that defensive value into a passive for Protection Paladins, and expect them to primarily use a mixture of Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness now. To provide better gameplay between Seal of Truth and Seal of Righteousness, and effectively remove a button, we made Seal of Righteousness transform Crusader Strike into Hammer of the Righteous.

Seal of Insight no longer gives melee attacks a chance to heal the Paladin.

Inner Light is a new passive ability for Protection Paladins and provides a chance for each melee attack to heal the Paladin.

Priest
We swapped the Level-15 and Level-60 talent rows so players are presented with core Priest themed abilities earlier in the leveling process.

Level-15 and Level-60 talent rows have swapped places.

Rogue
Among some other changes to improve Rogue AoE damage, we made a couple of baseline changes, and added a few Draenor Perks that impacts their AoE. wanted to make sure that Fan of Knives benefitted from Seal Fate.

Early on in PvP Season 15, we found and corrected a couple issues that were causing players to reach extremely high Personal Rating when compared to their Matchmaking Rating (MMR), particularly in Rated Battlegrounds. As an unfortunate side-effect of these fixes, some players started experiencing regular games in which they could lose Personal Rating for a loss, but not gain any on a win. This issue quickly resolved itself in Arenas through normal gameplay, but has lingered for a lot longer in Rated Battlegrounds.

To correct this, we’ve applied a hotfix that will increase everyone’s MMR in Rated Battlegrounds by 100. As this change is being applied to everyone (even players who have not yet participated in a Rated BG), there is no change to rankings – we’re just bringing the average up by 100.

This should allow players who were previously still earning 0 rating on wins to once again earn rating normally. As a result, players who were already earning rating normally will start seeing higher rating gains per win and lower rating penalties per loss until their personal rating is once again in line with their MMR.

Again, as this change is being applied to everyone, there should be no real impact on ladders as a result. Ratings will inflate briefly (much like they do as part of our normal rating inflation), but there should be no long-term damage to rankings.

The Embalmer's Revenge: Resolved an issue where Stitches was not resetting correctly.

Raids, Dungeons, and Scenarios

Siege of Orgrimmar

Malkorok

Resolved an issue where Ancient Miasma effects were able to persist after the encounter ended.

Garrosh Hellscream

During the Garrosh Hellscream encounter, Word of Glory no longer generates threat during stages 2 and 3 to address an issue that was making the encounter more difficult than intended for raid groups with Protection Paladin tanks.

Unstable Iron Stars now Fixate on players for 12 seconds (up from 10 seconds) during stage 4 of the Garrosh Hellscream encounter on Heroic difficulty.

The Eye of Eternity: Resolved an issue that could prevent players from being able to loot Alexstrasza's Gift after defeating Malygos.

Items

Potion of Luck: Reduced the amount of gold found in Plundered Treasures.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Character / ItemsWill the only other utility poison being the talent leeching poison.....what is the point of the rogue PvP set bonus now?
we're changing almost all of the PvP set bonuses (holinka)

Warlords of Draenor StatsWhat about spirit on current gear for Shadow, Balance, Elemental? Dead stat in WoD?
Removed from all gear except jewelry. Yes, you'll want to get non-spirit jewelry for Warlords. (Celestalon)

PvEWith the removal of expertise in WoD, will old school raid bosses still have a 3% parry chance, seems unfair for non tank solos.
3% won't stop you from being able to solo them. You'll be more than able to solo them, if you're able to now. (Celestalon)

Professionswhat is going to stop engineering utility from dominating if other professions lose dps/stat bonuses?
Going to remove the combat utility, or allow it to be used by non-engineers. (Celestalon)Point of being a engineer is then to?
Same as the other professions: To craft useful items. Engineering items are just more unusual and interesting. (Celestalon)

Pound Sterling Pricing Changes on Certain WoW Services

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We will shortly be adjusting the pound sterling prices of some of the optional services we offer for World of Warcraft. We regularly review our pricing and services around the world to make sure we’re offering what we feel is the best entertainment value for the cost, and the upcoming adjustments are being made with that goal still in mind.

The new prices will take effect on April 30. You can see a breakdown of the changes below:

It wasn't a change, this isn't new news. They said you cant put your garrison anywhere back during Blizzcon 2013. They said there would be a specific zone due to phasing issues. They didnt want random people doing quests to get phased because of someones garrison.

As a Rogue I do appriciate buffs, but buffing the aoe this much doesnt feel like the essence of a deadly assassin haha, so much aoe potential and all I wanna do is to backstab som big fella in a dungeon

It wasn't a change, this isn't new news. They said you cant put your garrison anywhere back during Blizzcon 2013. They said there would be a specific zone due to phasing issues. They didnt want random people doing quests to get phased because of someones garrison.

No, they said there's be specific spots, as in a place in each zone that was meant for Garrisons. Also, you wouldn't get randomly phased to someone else's Garrison regardless. That's not how phasing works.

I don't want a garrison in fucking Frostfire. It's ugly as hell - I don't mind questing through it, but no way would I stay there. Shadowmoon is just as bad, with the constant night. Let me have a Nagrand garrison, or don't bother at all.

Are players really so content starved in this game that they are hyped about something as mundane as these garrisons?

Well it was kind of the only and biggest feature in the next expansion. But yeah, I've never assumed the garrisons to be more than Sunsong Ranch 2.0 anyway. Even the follower npc interaction was always going to be just a Farmville-esque side project.

I was however hoping that it would be completely optional and something to do in my free time. But apparently it's going to be shoved down my throat on apparently every character I ever try to level in the expansion. So that's fun.

Sent Celestalon a tweet talking about how this Jab change forces WW to take Ascension and value haste over their other stats, which he replied "no it doesn't" which is just plain false. If more haste=higher regen, and higher jab cost=more need for regen, then higher jab cost=need for more haste.

Don't get me wrong FFR is an awesome zone, but my Night Elven toes will not be freezing in Shadowmoon ;D

This is why I'm so annoyed. If my main was Alliance, I wouldn't want to move my garrison from SV anyway but as awesome as FFR looks, I don't want to have my garrison permanently stuck in that zone because it's not half as nice as SV. I think it's pathetic that they're removing this option to move your garrison that so many people were excited for.

So less and less everyday for an overpriced expansion. So much focus spent on new character models that you'll only really see on the char screen. Who doesn't play at max zoom out anyway. I'd rather have varied combat animations with actual impact instead of meleeattack1, meleeattack2.

It just sucks that I found a decent raiding guild at this point in the game...

Pathetic. That was quite literally my most looked-forward to feature about Garrisons - the ability to have them in any zone, to sort of set up your "base of operations" in the most suitable location according to your personal taste. Now, we'll be stuck in the starter zones. What a fucking amazing design choice that was. Thanks, Blizzard.

Oh, and I probably speak for myself, but I'm more than a little disgusted by certain "explanations" for the mass removal of certain spells/abilities. Basically smells of the D3 fiasco, where Blizzard tells US what WE enjoy, other than the other way around. And no, I don't expect players to design the game instead of Blizzard, if you're curious/unintelligent.